Monthly Archives: November 2020

national news

A ‘sucker’ is revealed

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, it’s time for an admission.

I admit to being a sucker for what I had hoped would be a realization from Donald Trump — had circumstances dictated it — that he would bow out of the presidency with relative silence.

Not with class, dignity, decorum and grace, mind you. I thought he would simply say that “Joe Biden won; I lost. I will accept that and go on my way.” That’s all he had to say.

Donald Trump hasn’t said even that.

Oh, no. He is filing lawsuits left and right in states all across the country. He hasn’t called Biden to congratulate him. As a friend reminded me today, Trump hasn’t yet allowed the new president access to national security briefings, which is essential for a smooth transition from one presidency to the next one.

The peaceful transfer of power is likely to occur. I don’t expect there to be gunshots at the White House or on Capitol Hill when Trump leaves office on Jan. 20. What I had hoped for would be a semblance of the kind of traditional ceremony one sees in these moments.

You know what I mean. The Trumps welcoming the Bidens to the White House. The obligatory photo op meeting in the Oval Office. The two men saying publicly how they plan to cooperate. Trump pledging a seamless transition; Biden promising to ask his predecessor for advice as needs arise. The handshakes, the smiles … or what they refer to in newspaper circles as “grip and grin” photos.

We are getting none of that.

I didn’t expect Trump to offer the traditional concession speech. All I thought we might get would be a gritted-teeth admission that he lost.

My goodness, we have gotten none of it!

The impact of this hideous behavior from the lame-duck president could be devastating on our democracy. Nations around the world are going to look at us with even more skepticism as they watch the outgoing president challenge openly the very fabric of our democratic system of government.

My inclination to look for the good in individuals, even those who don’t necessarily deserve it, has been decimated by the behavior of a man about whom I should have known better.

I am ashamed of myself.

national news

This is how you conduct a ‘peaceful transfer of power’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will be brief with this post.

I have included with these few words a video showing some recent transitions of power from one presidential administration to the next one. They include transitions from one political party to another.

They illustrate the greatness of this nation. They tell us how it usually is done. How individuals with competing world views can seek common good and show the world how Americans can set aside their differences to ensure seamless transfers of power.

Now we have Donald John Trump Sr. …

national news

Boorishness lives among GOP

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Boorishness is alive and well — dammit, anyway! — among Republican political leaders.

A Democrat has won an election for president. Do you think there would be any prominent Republican member of Congress who would deign to wish President-elect Joe Biden well as he begins to form a new government? Might there be a tide of good wishes coming from the “loyal opposition”?

One would think. Except that we’re now exiting the Era of Trump, the Sore Loser in Chief whose own brand of boorishness apparently has been spread to others in Capitol Hill.

OK, there are exceptions. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have extended their good wishes; so has Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. George W. Bush, the only living former GOP president, did so, too.

Donald Trump continues his futile attempt to sow discord among the GOP faithful by challenging the election results. He says he won’t concede. His pals in the Senate, led by Lindsey Graham, say a concession would doom the GOP to losses at the presidential election level forever. Good grief!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to say congrats; so has House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. A host of other GOP pols have endorsed Trump’s bogus assertions about widespread fraud and illegality.

President-elect Biden is left, therefore, to proceed apace with his own task of forming a government and getting to work.

We are witnessing yet another national disgrace courtesy of the clown who, thankfully, is about to exit the political stage.

Good … riddance!

national news

This drama will have a predictable ending

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Americans are witnessing an amazing dual-track drama being played out simultaneously by the winner and loser of the 2020 presidential campaign.

President-elect Joe Biden is proceeding as if everything’s hunky-dory with the result of the election. Indeed, it is in many of our minds. Biden has captured 279 electoral votes, enough to win the election; there will be more of them added to Biden’s total when the counting is completed. He has formed a coronavirus task force to begin working on possible solutions to the killer pandemic.

Biden meanwhile is looking at possible Cabinet appointees and other high-level staff positions in the White House.

Legal challenge? What legal challenge?

Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump is saying the election is “far from over.” He is mounting lawsuit upon lawsuit in courts across the land. He alleges the election was “stolen” from him by illegal voters. Proof? Evidence? There’s none to be found. Trump has failed to produce a shred of either. All he does is tweet out allegations with no basis in fact.

Adding to the chaos is that he fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper today, ending a lengthy feud that developed when Trump threatened to deploy active-duty military forces to put down protests of racial policy; Esper pushed back hard against that hare-brained and patently dangerous notion. Trump was enraged. Today he wacked the Pentagon boss. He’s gone.

I prefer to concentrate on the Biden approach to forming a new government. He is proceeding with all due diligence and care. He is getting his briefings on the pandemic and other national security issues. He knows how this goes. He’s been there before, having served for either productive years as VP in the Barack Obama administration.

This drama will end eventually. Trump will run out of legal challenges. Biden will continue apace to form a government. We’ll have a ceremony in Washington on Jan. 20. Biden will take the oath; whether Trump is present to witness it in person remains an open question … which, frankly, doesn’t concern me in the least.

Then the new president will go to work.

That’s how it is supposed to play out. Is this a great country, or what?

national news

Trump set to destroy what’s left of his legacy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s play this post-presidential election drama out just a bit, eh?

Donald Trump is threatening to sue the pants off the federal and state governments over the results of an election that shows him the clear loser in the race against President-elect Joe Biden.

We all know — or at least most of us know — that Trump thinks first of himself and to hell with the rest of us, the country or the institutions of government.

Were I in a position to counsel this POTUS, I might be inclined to remind him of how this all could end. It could end up with a protracted fight to the bitter end, with the courts — all of them, including the Supreme Court — ruling against every challenge he has mounted. He contends with a shred of evidence that the election was “stolen” from him by millions of illegal voters.

If it comes to that, Donald Trump is poised to destroy what is left of whatever legacy he ever thought of leaving after his term as president has ended. Does this individual really want to be remembered for all time, forever and ever, as the president who sought to dismantle the very underpinnings of our representative democracy?

He faces the prospect of being scorned and ridiculed more than he will be already.

I would tell him, “Mr. President, this fight isn’t worth the permanent damage it is going to do to your reputation. No kidding, man!”

But … that’s just me.

medical news, national news

Return to WHO

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When the coronavirus pandemic was picking up a head of deadly steam, Donald J. Trump became so angry with the World Health Organization that he — get this — pulled the United States out of the organization.

He blamed the WHO for covering up China’s alleged secrecy surrounding the cases that were spreading around the world. So, rather than keeping the country involved with the health organization, he pulled us out.

That’ll show ’em, he said.

Donald Trump is now on his way out of office and his successor, President-elect Joe Biden, is planning to sign a series of executive orders as soon as he takes the oath of office. One of them will return the United States to the WHO, enabling us to rely once again on the medical expertise that WHO’s infectious disease doctors can provide.

To be clear on one point, WHO membership doesn’t guarantee success in the fight against the pandemic. Taiwan, for instance, is not a member of WHO. Why? The People’s Republic of China bans Taiwan’s membership because the PRC considers Taiwan to be a renegade province of China. Taiwan, meanwhile, has done very well in stemming the infection and death rate, even without WHO assistance.

The United States hasn’t had that kind of success. Our death rates continue at a distressing rate. Too many Americans are dying daily. Donald Trump’s response has been feckless and futile.

Joe Biden intends to return this country to the community of nations that rely on our expertise. Indeed, we also can rely on the expertise of other nations to battle a killer virus.

WHO membership during these perilous times isn’t necessarily vital. However, it is important.

national news

‘W’ extends a hand

(Photo by Paul McErlane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It turns out that not every prominent Republican politician in America has dug in his or her heels while refusing to congratulate the next Democratic president, Joe Biden.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president, the former Texas governor and former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, has called the president-elect to congratulate him on his victory over Donald Trump.

As the Texas Tribune has reported: “Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country,” Bush said in a statement. “The President-elect reiterated that while he ran as a Democrat, he will govern for all Americans. I offered him the same thing I offered Presidents Trump and Obama: my prayers for his success, and my pledge to help in any way I can.”

You know, I would be willing to bet real American money that it didn’t hurt President Bush a single bit to say those kind words about the next president.

Compare that with the idiocy spouted by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has urged Trump to refuse conceding to President-elect Biden. Concession, he said, would mean “no Republican” ever would be elected president … ever!

Good grief, Lindsey. Chill out, man. Take a hint from President Bush.

media news

TV silence is so golden

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My immediate family and I sat in the middle of one of America’s “battleground states.”

Yes, Joe Biden and Donald Trump believed Texas’s 38 electoral votes were worth the fight. Those votes will go to Trump when the Electoral College meets next month, but not before both sides emptied much of their campaign cash into our TV sets.

They blanketed the air waves with ads. They were incessant. They were harsh. And oh they were frequent.

Well, I am so happy to disclose the obvious: the election is over … and the ads have ceased!

I found the ads annoying. I suppose it was due mostly to the fact that my mind was made up long ago. Still, they were so very repetitive.

I don’t know about you but I am going to cherish the silence.

environmental news

Bring back climate accords!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden vowed during his winning campaign to commit to restoring our nation’s effort to head off climate change.

Donald Trump had pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accord agreement, citing perceived damage to U.S. jobs. Well, Trump is leaving office and Biden has listed a number of executive orders he intends to sign on Day One of the new presidency.

One of them would revoke Trump’s order removing the nation from the climate accords. It would return to the United States to the community of nations that believes — as many Americans do — that climate change needs international attention.

The climate accords intend to reduce carbon emissions that are blamed for much of the planet’s changing climate.

I am one American who fears the effect of climate change. I am afraid of the rising sea levels; the frequency and increasing intensity of hurricanes scare the daylights out of me; the prolonged droughts out west and the intense wildfires that this year have destroyed millions of acres of forestland and timber give me grave concern.

Donald Trump’s response to the wildfires? Do a better job of raking up dead and dry tinder from the forest floor!

Joe Biden sees the climate change for what it is: an existential threat to Planet Earth.

He wants to reassert our national leadership throughout the world.

One of the executive orders he intends to sign to restore our commitment to the Paris Climate Accord is a signal of our return to the world stage.

national news

Yes, on DACA order

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President-elect Biden has made clear his intention to walk directly into the Oval Office when he takes office and get right to work.

Biden’s transition team has announced the president-elect’s intention to sign several executive orders on Day One. One of them speaks directly to an issue that interests me greatly: restoration of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals order that Donald Trump revoked not long after he took office.

Former President Obama issued the DACA order initially, intending to shield from deportation those U.S. residents who had been brought here illegally by their parents; most of those DACA recipients have lived in this country since they were babies, infants, toddlers. They know no other country than the United States of America.

Obama sought to give them a fast track to seeking permanent legal resident status or citizenship. Trump wasn’t having any of it. He revoked his predecessor’s executive order. Now Trump’s immediate successor wants to restore the DACA program.

Good for you, Mr. President-elect!

I haven’t yet come to grips with precisely why Trump targeted DACA recipients in that manner. I wonder if he did it because he truly believed that they were lawbreakers as young children/toddlers because they came here illegally under the care of their parents. Or did he do it just to wipe away a vestige of President Obama’s time in office, which seems to have rankled Trump to no end.

I’m going to go with the latter rationale.

Indeed, many DACA recipients have carved out productive lives as U.S. residents. Many of them have achieved academic excellence and success in their chosen profession. They pay their taxes and they have become de facto citizens simply by virtue of their ability to live by the rules of the land to where they were brought.

DACA recipients don’t deserve a free ride. Nor do they deserve permanent amnesty. They should be allowed to seek legal resident status without fear of imminent deportation to the land of their birth, but a land with which they have zero familiarity.

That, I trust, is President-elect Biden’s goal by restoring DACA status to hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents.